NEW DELHI: The Government has notified March 31 as the new deadline to link bank accounts with Aadhaar, the Finance Ministry announced on Wednesday. The move comes a day after the ministry's department of revenue withdrew the earlier deadline of December 31 in a notification that came into effect on Tuesday.

“After considering various representations received and inputs received from Banks, it has been decided to notify March 31, 2018, or six months from the date of commencement of account based relationship by the client, whichever is later, as the date of submission of the Aadhaar number, and Permanent Account Number or Form 60 by the clients to the reporting entity. Necessary notification in this regard has been issued,” the ministry said.

The move comes a week after the government’s top legal officer submitted to the Supreme Court that the government would extend deadlines for over 130 services where Aadhaar linking had been made mandatory including bank accounts and PAN. The government has already notified the extension of deadline for PAN from December 31 to March 31.

The extension of deadline for Aadhaar seeding of bank accounts has been made possible by the Department of Revenue’s December 12 notification amending the Prevention of Money Laundering Act’s (PMLA) Maintainence of Records rules.

Earlier, under PMLA provisions, if those eligible to be enrolled under Aadhaar and obtain PAN, did not link them to accounts opened under reporting entities under the Act (including with banks, cooperative banks, chit funds etc) as per the notified deadlines then the accounts would “cease to be operational”. Under the Act, original Aadhaar linking deadlines for existing accounts were December 31, 2017, and for new accounts, within six months of opening the accounts.

The amendments notified on Tuesday however, have removed the deadline of December 31 for linking Aadhaar with reporting entities, opening the way for the government to notify new dates.

So far, the government has announced March 31, 2018, as the new deadline for linking Aadhaar with PAN and bank accounts.

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